Category: Disasters

According to a family source, 38-year-old Lee Weber was on a family outing in Conneaut, Ohio when he got caught along a breakwall and went under the water.

Source: Pittsburgh firefighter drowns during family outing on Lake Erie

Rescue efforts at the site of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida, officially ended late on Wednesday night as officials have said there is no chance of life in the rubble.

More victims were recovered on Thursday, bringing the death toll by the early evening to 64 and the number of those still unaccounted for down to 76. Of those who were recovered, 35 have been identified.

Some families of those who have lost loved ones were taken to the site of the wreckage in the afternoon while recovery crews paused their work in order to pay their respects.

Thursday marked two weeks since the building collapsed in the early morning of 24 June. “Over the last 14 days, you all know our search and rescue teams … have been digging through this collapse. They’ve used every possible strategy and every piece of technology available to them to find people in the rubble,” the Miami-Dade mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, said on Wednesday, adding that rescuers have removed more than 7m pounds of concrete and debris from the mound.

Source: Miami condo collapse death toll hits 64 as rescue efforts end | Miami condo collapse | The Guardian

By Elisha Fieldstadt

The confirmed death toll in the partial collapse of a Miami Beach-area condo building rose to 32 Tuesday, the 13th day of an ongoing search for victims.

Four bodies were recovered overnight, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said during a morning news briefing. Twenty-six of the victims have been identified, she said.

While 113 people remain “potentially unaccounted for,” only 70 of those people are confirmed to have been in Champlain Towers South in Surfside when half of it crumbled in the early morning of June 24, she said.

The numbers of people accounted for, which now stands at 191, and people unaccounted for have fluctuated as detectives work to audit a list of those reported missing since the collapse.

Levine Cava said reaching some family members who originally called to report someone missing has become a challenge, making “it very difficult to determine whether an individual was in fact in the building.”

She urged family members to reach back out with more information, if possible.

Source: Death toll up to 32 in Miami Beach-area condo building collapse

SURFSIDE, Fla. – The death toll in the condominium collapse rose to 27 on Monday with the discovery of three more bodies as the desperate search resumed hours after the remaining sections of the building were brought down by controlled implosion.

More than 100 people remain missing since the Champlain Towers South collapsed on June 24. Authorities took down the remaining sections of the building Sunday, concerned that winds from approaching Tropical Storm Elsa would topple the structure and further endanger the hunt for survivors.

The victims were recovered Monday morning, Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told family members, raising the death toll to 27 people, the Associated Press reported.

The complex perched on the ocean’s edge was reduced to a jagged pile of rubble at least two stories tall, topped by a jumble of air conditioners, twister rebar and snapped concrete columns. Heavy equipment roared at the scene, with dump trucks hauling away hundreds of tons of debris.

Source: Miami condo collapse demolition: 3 more bodies found, death toll at 27